Animal Strategies: Pretending to be AI

I should bring this up because this is something that was possible in a specific MMO many years ago when they briefly tried to allow players to play as animals alongside normal humanoids. If you play as an animal, other players will generally be able to spot you based on certain non-AI behaviors you exhibit. This will generally include the following:

- Looking around in one place rather than placidly focusing on where you're trodding to
- Sprinting for no reason
- Attacking other animals of the same species for no reason
- Attacking any other species that shouldn't logically be attacked (deer attacking rabbit)

Chances are if you are spotted as an animal, most players will attack you on sight regardless..BUT if you make certain to disguise your behavior carefully you may be able to trick other players into thinking you are just an AI creature that doesn't have a normal "aggro" on humans until the very last moment when you attack! For instance, Humanoid players that are just starting off and have no weapons will simply stay out of the water to avoid Crocodiles - little do they know that you aren't an AI Crocodile and you are planning to sprint out of the water and chomp them up!

There are footprints for all characters, so tracking down a human and pretending to be AI might be a good way of getting a free meal on that tasty human meat!

You said it, yes this will request to be clever.
By the way, as we talk about animal IA, I Wonder : will animals have social behaviours. I mean to show interacting expression physically (lift the tail for examle).
Moreover, I wonder about the animals gait : will the vital signs be visible by the gait ? Like if the animal is hurted or very tired, will this be visible for other players ?

Those are great suggestions and they fall more under the category of details which are just added incrementally rather than any kind of sea-change to the overall vision or mechanics. There's not really a self-imposed limit we have on realistic animal AI behavior - so all these ideas are very welcome. There are a lot of animal behavior elements that can and should be added on later. As it is the primary focus right now is making sure it's actually enjoyable to "hunt" the animals first and foremost. If they're too dumb and slow to make hunting interesting, a lot of the other subtleties could really be ruined since people wouldn't take their time approaching animals carefully or spend time observing them from a distance. I do think currently that hunting IS fun, but we're still dialing in some of the balance issues to make it even more interesting. Simply having animals run as a result of a general proximity alarm is fine for now and it works, but we may expand more on this topic later with things like giving animals a shorter proximity alarm from the front - to imply vision is a factor on sneaking, and/or giving a higher proximity alarm radius for players that are running instead of sneaking etc.

For instance, Humanoid players that are just starting off and have no weapons will simply stay out of the water to avoid Crocodiles - little do they know that you aren't an AI Crocodile and you are planning to sprint out of the water and chomp them up!

Very intereresting to read that animals will have a danger area behavior.
So you say this area, where animal begin to feel in danger, evolve with the attitude of the predator. Sneaking/running approach is a really good point.
I would like to know on what "danger's understanding" it is based : hearing, view or smell ? I mean it's because running makes noise or it's because running makes the predator more visible ?